Carolyn Davidson - The Wedding Promise

In the heat of the first few minutes of their encounter, she’d been aware only of the danger his presence offered to the young boys she guarded with her very body. Now she was apprehensive for her own sake, and her eyes were wary as she faced him.

“We haven’t got anything you’d want, mister. There’s just me and the boys. Our pa will be back any time now, but—”

Cord’s eyes flickered to the telltale clothesline, strung between two sturdy maple trees. “Not much on that line that’d fit a full-grown man.”

Her eyes met his, a defiant look alive in their depths. “I haven’t gotten to his things yet.” The softness was gone from her lips as the blatant lie fell from her mouth. She swallowed, a visible breach in her composure, and her cheeks flushed crimson as she turned away, her hands moving to spread over the bare flesh above the bodice of her petticoat.

He followed an arm’s length behind her, his gaze sweeping over the length of her slim body. The petticoat was too short for fashion, exposing bare feet and ankles and just a suggestion of curving calves. Her shoulders were smooth, creamy and inviting, and his hands clenched as he felt the urge to touch the softness he knew would meet his caress.

“You’re on my property,” he reminded her. Her shoulders lifted, as if she’d caught her breath at his words, and she halted.

“We didn’t know anyone lived here. It was empty and neglected and we…” Her words trailed off and her head shook, a negative gesture. “We can pay a little for the use of the place. We’ll only be here for a while, just till we make some decisions.”

It was a fair offer. But Cord McPherson was used to doing business face-to-face. Looking at her back was a pleasure, but the memory of what she had become so conscious of in the past few minutes gnawed at him.

“Turn around and look at me if you want to do business, ma’am.” His words were low, but unwavering, an ultimatum in any man’s language.

“I can’t.” She whispered her denial of his demand. Her head turned, just a bit, and he caught sight of her rosy cheek, her lashes sweeping its heated surface.

It was enough. He’d managed to embarrass her beyond her endurance, and his good sense took command.

“Go put a dress on and get yourself back out here.”

She fled. With slender feet brushing aside the grass, she ran the few steps to the shack, one hand grasping the arm of the watching boy as she turned the corner.

“Rae!” The protest rang out in the silence and was hushed by a soft murmur from beyond his sight.

Cord cast one measuring glance around the empty clearing, then, lifting an empty wooden bucket from his path and leading his horse he headed for the stream.

She’d known it was too good to be true. That they would find an empty house…no, not a house, a shanty really. But sufficient for their needs for now.

She’d cleaned it up, sweeping the dirt floor with her mother’s good broom, scrubbing the crude wooden table and chair with an old shirt of Pa’s. The stove worked, once she’d carried out an accumulation of ashes and set a small pile of kindling to burning in its depths. The draft worked and the chimney drew well.

The boys had taken over the single bunk, one at each end for sleeping, and she’d been content to roll up by the stove at night, the shotgun placed in front of her. It had almost been idyllic, this three-week stretch of time, with her marking the days in her mother’s journal.

Somehow, it was important that she know when Sunday came. And just the other day she’d sat beneath the trees to read from Pa’s Bible, knowing the boys would only pay attention for a short while. She’d sung with them, reminding them of the words they stumbled over, yearning for an hour in the white church back home in Pennsylvania.

Home. Her mouth tightened as the word nudged her memories. She bent to find her blue dress in the trunk beside the boys’ bunk, her fingers busy as she unfolded it and pulled it over her head. No sense in getting maudlin over the past. This was here and now and she was committed to making the best of things.

The buttons slid easily into the handmade buttonholes her mother had worked with care one winter’s evening. Rachel Sinclair allowed only a moment’s grief for that memory as she prepared herself to face the man waiting outdoors.

Crying never did anyone any good as far as she could see. She’d shed her tears when the bodies of the people she loved most in the world were lowered into their graves, each a day apart from the other, more than a month ago, beside the trail in Missouri.

Then she’d gathered up the reins and taken charge. Any grown woman, eighteen years old, had better be equipped to tend to her family these days, or she’d be showing a decided lack of good upbringing, she’d vowed on that day.

And she’d done just that. Taken charge of her brothers and turned her face west. In the direction of her father’s dream…a dream she vowed would not die with him.

This shack was only a temporary stopping place. Somehow she’d find a way to continue on, to where she might find a place for the boys to grow and flourish. A place where she might find a man willing to take on a ready-made family.

A man. She blinked at the reminder. You’ve got a man waiting right this minute, Rachel Sinclair. You need to go on out there and face him and do some dealing. The memory of the small nest egg in the bottom of the trunk reminded her of the limits of her bargaining power and she shrugged off the daunting thought

At the door the boys waited, watching the tall intruder as he walked from their sight, heading for the stream. Preparing to join them, Rachel brushed back her hair with agile fingers as she approached the door, feeling for the braid that hung down her back.

“What’s he doing?” she asked quietly. Hastily, she rolled up her sleeves to just beneath her elbows. He’d already seen pretty near everything she owned. No sense in being overly modest, she decided stoutly.

Washing clothes in her petticoat had seemed safe enough. Besides keeping her dress dry and clean, she’d enjoyed the breeze blowing against her bare shoulders and arms, keeping her cool. She’d scrubbed out the boy’s overalls, rinsing them in the bucket and wringing out the water before she hung them on the line to dry.

And then, just as she’d sent Jay to the stream for clean water to wash the rest of her own things, the stranger had come, destroying what little peace of mind she’d been able to find in this place.

She was ready to face him, as ready as she’d ever be, but she hesitated at the threshold. His demeanor had overpowered her, more so than the gun she’d spied behind his saddle, which she was dead certain he could handle with an expert touch.

He’d not threatened her, not bodily, but his eyes had paused to survey every living inch of her, especially the parts the bodice of her petticoat had failed to cover.

She blushed anew at the thought. And so it was that she watched him, reins in one hand, bucket in the other, striding up the fresh path from the stream, worn down only by the repeated steps of Jay and Henry over the past weeks, the grass still green beneath his feet

He carried the bucket easily, its weight a barely noticed hindrance to his easy gait. His hat was pushed back a bit and she caught sight of dark eyes, their intensity focused on her, his nose flaring just a bit as he came to a halt in front of her.

“I figured you needed water. Thought I’d save you a trip to the stream while I watered my horse.”

“Yes, thank you.” He’d put her at a disadvantage already, being nice. She drew in a breath, reaching for the handle of the bucket.

“Let the boy get it.” He nodded, his movement a silent command, and Henry eased past her to take the bucket from his grasp. “Take it in the house, son.”